Various kinds of apparatus including a personal computer, a server and a mobile phone each have asset data including hardware-specific data, software data, user data and so forth, for example, CPU utilization, utilization of a storage, electric consumption and so on. A management system which collects asset data that the apparatus individually has is known.
The management system is provided with a management server for collecting asset data individually from the apparatus. If the management server manages lots of apparatuses, connections for transmitting the asset data individually from the apparatuses concentrate on the management server, resulting in a heavy load put on the management server. Thus, it takes long time to store the asset data in the management server and some of the asset data may fail to be stored in some cases.
An ordinary technology for providing a relay server and controlling the number of apparatuses to be coupled at the same time by layering a communication network so as to reduce the load put on the management server caused by such concentrated connection is known, e.g., as disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-184727.